


A Time For Family

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: My Family (And Other Dinosaurs) [34]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-01
Updated: 2009-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 00:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3269759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyle’s mother is more than welcome for supper, of course – a chance to see her son and his boyfriend before Christmas, and a chance for Lyle to spend a bit of time with her that he doesn’t normally get. But she’s never met Liz before, and Lester is worried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time For Family

**Author's Note:**

> This... kind of got out of hand. Anyway, Julia and Lyle and Henry belong to fredbassett. Liz’s childhood ‘crush’ on Simon comes from kerry_louise. *g* Fred checked it over for me.

            It was obvious that the first order of business was telling Liz. For one thing, she was the only one who did any real cooking, and she took violent exception to unexpected guests wanting to participate in meals; Lester couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t successfully throw even Julia Denton out, should Julia happen to arrive at the flat without himself or Lyle. After some thought, Lyle agreed.

 

            Lester therefore approached Liz as early as possible, one evening when she was constructing two highly elaborate mugs of hot chocolate for herself and her best friend Simon. Simon’s role in the proceedings appeared to be sitting on the counter and heckling, but Liz would probably trust him to watch the concoction for a moment or two.

 

            He cleared his throat. “Liz? Can I have a word?”

 

            “Now?” Liz said with some despair. “Okay, fine. Watch that,” she said to Simon, gesturing at a pan of milk on the hob. “Let it boil and I will personally break the picture window, just so I can push you out of it.”

 

            Simon saluted, and subjected the milk pan to a sarcastically heavy scrutiny. Liz simply rolled her eyes, and followed Lester to his study.

 

            “I remember when you had a crush on him,” Lester told her nostalgically, recalling a much tinier girl who still answered to Elizabeth on a regular basis, and had knocked out two of Simon’s milk teeth in Year Three, since when they had been inseparable. To be fair, it was more than possible that Simon had simply annoyed Liz, but teasing her about a supposed outbreak of straightness aged eight was much funnier, not to mention a plausible explanation of the sequence of events.

 

            Liz rolled her eyes again, crossed her arms and leant against his desk. “I remember when you thought I was straight. Something the matter?”

 

            “No,” Lester prevaricated. He was slightly taken aback by Liz’s brusqueness, but not very; she’d been in a permanent bad mood for several months earlier in the year, struggling to manage her grief over her brother’s death and her GCSEs at the same time – which had come out very creditably indeed, considering the circumstances, but still weren’t what Liz had wanted. The bad mood had lightened over the summer, and she’d returned almost to normal behaviour, but September and the onset of the new school term had inspired a further dramatic downturn, probably because Juliet had achieved a long-held dream and got into the Royal Ballet School, which wouldn’t have been so much of a problem if it hadn’t been a boarding school. Liz no longer saw Juliet regularly during the week, and found that she was usually busy and exhausted during the weekends too. The resulting tension was probably only symptomatic of a major link in Liz’s support network weakening slightly rather than any actual trouble in their relationship, but Lester worried.

 

            Liz was looking at him strangely. “No, really, Dad – is something the matter?”

 

            “It’s Jon’s mother,” he said carefully. “Julia. I mentioned her. So did Jon.”

 

            “Several times,” Liz agreed, nodding. “Former tabloid hack, smokes like a fish and drinks like a – no, wait, drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney, and maybe...” She hesitated, and he saw the guarded look that usually heralded veiled references to the anomaly project – “... not as retired as you’d like?”

 

            “Correct on all counts,” Lester told her, and saw his daughter relax as she absorbed the information. “She lives in Spain.”

 

            “Um, okay?” Liz’s eyes narrowed, and her head tilted to the side; she looked startlingly like Kathy for a moment, before common sense reasserted itself. “Is this important information?”

 

            “When you consider that she’s passing through London in two weeks’ time and would like to come round for dinner, specifically to see Jon and his, ah, posh totty-”

 

            Liz sniggered, and clapped a hand over her mouth as if she couldn’t believe she’d laughed. Lester glared uselessly at her.

 

            “-then yes, it is rather... important.”

 

            “Fine.” Liz shrugged. “Is she allergic to anything?”

 

            “You’d have to ask Jon,” Lester said rather weakly. He honestly hadn’t thought it was going to be that easily. “Liz, you don’t have to cook. She’d probably quite like to meet you, but you don’t have to do more than appear briefly if you don’t want to, and even that is negotiable.”

 

            “How come you’re never like this when I want to dodge Mum’s relatives?” Liz shrugged again. “She raised Jon, she can’t be that boring. And she can’t be that bad to cook for. I’ve cooked for Nicky’s friends and I had to tell that bloody redhead she could take it or leave it, but carrots were an integral part of life and she should probably get used to them. If I can deal with that I can deal with grown-ups. Is she picky?”

 

            “On the contrary,” Lester said, simultaneously relieved and alarmed, “she’s very... interesting and omnivorous, so far as I know.”

 

            Liz grinned, and Lester had occasion to wonder what would happen if he allowed his daughter and Julia Denton to spend more than fifteen minutes in the same room. He quailed internally.

 

            “Liz!” came a petrified shriek from the kitchen, as from someone whose acquaintance with cooking began and ended at bacon butties. “It’s overflowing!”

 

            “Dickhead! I told you not to let it boil!” Liz bellowed, and vanished.

 

             Lester collapsed against his desk and put his head into his hands, feeling bizarrely weak. There was no possible way that that was the end of his technically mother-in-law-related problems.

 

 

            On the day that had been set for a friendly supper – a Friday evening, scuppering Lester’s usual plans for takeaway with an old friend – Lester finished work at six o’clock and met Lyle at the door to his office.

 

            “You’re early,” he observed, greeting Lyle with a perfunctory kiss on the cheek partly because he was nervous and partly because his PA was in the same room, and she had enough to put up with without him and Jon canoodling in front of her.

 

            “My watch’s gone fast,” Lyle said, strapping the offending article back onto his wrist and turning the perfunctory kiss into a rather more in-depth snog. “I think Temple’s been at it again.”

 

            “If I could persuade him to stop improving things, our electricity bill would be much lower. Similarly, Jon, _must_ you destroy the remains of my professional reputation in front of my PA?” Lester straightened his tie and pasted a disapproving expression onto his face, but the latter dissolved when Lyle gave him an unrepentant grin.

 

            “Miss Wickes doesn’t mind, sweetums – I checked.”

 

            Lester, unsurprised, glanced at Lorraine Wickes for confirmation.

 

            “He did,” Lorraine said. She didn’t bother to look up, but pushed her reading glasses onto the bridge of her nose and squinted at what looked like an example of Captain Jacob’s handwriting (which was most politely described as _regrettable_ , and which Lorraine had taken to transcribing before it crossed Lester’s desk). “I said he could do what he liked in front of me provided he stopped abusing the common comma.”

 

            “My grammar isn’t that bad,” Lyle said cheerfully, perjuring himself.

 

            “Lies, my little fruitbat,” Lester said severely, “rotten, filthy lies. Your grammar is a disgrace.”

 

            “Could be worse, I could be an English teacher,” Lyle defended himself, leading both Lorraine and Lester to stare at him with undisguised horror. Lyle raised his hands and grinned. “OK, so I couldn’t. James, the traffic’s hell. If we want to make it home before my esteemed mother does, we should go.”

 

            “Was it that bad?” Lester said, momentarily side-tracked. The only remarkable feature of the day’s anomaly had been the three traffic-ridden hours it took to get back from it. The anomaly itself had hung around in space for hours without anything coming out of it, and was a strong contender in the Least Favourite Anomaly poll – which Lyle was running, with nominations accepted until the first of December, voting commencing on the third and Lester reluctantly crowning the winner at the Christmas party, along with the winner of Favourite Anomaly, Favourite and Least Favourite Creature, Most Outrageous Fuck-Up, Most Unforgettable One-Liner, Guardian Angel of 2008 and the Connor Temple Award for the Biggest Pratfall of 2008.

 

            Lyle just grimaced.

 

            “Oh dear,” Lester said, reading unspeakable horrors off his partner’s face. “In that case, we really had better go. Goodbye, Lorraine, see you tomorrow, if you stay in until nine o’clock again I will know, so don’t.”

 

            Lyle snorted, said goodbye to Lorraine as well, and followed Lester out of the office. “I got a text from my mother ten minutes ago; apparently she’s just caught her train, so I reckon we have about forty-five minutes before she gets here.”

 

            “Should be plenty of time to get back, shouldn’t it?” They passed into the car park, a monstrosity of concrete, but one in which Lester had a convenient reserved parking space. Lester fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the car, before slinging his briefcase into the back seat and climbing into the driver’s seat. Lyle got in on the passenger side.

 

            “You’d think so,” Lyle said. “But there was a huge accident just by Lambeth Bridge when we came back in, and that’s going to play merry hell with the traffic both sides of the river. Looked nasty when we passed it, but covered in the police and the ambulance.”

 

            Lester made a brief acknowledging noise that expressed an understanding of the severity of this incident and tried to ease the Mercedes out of its parking space without running over Dr Butterworth, a scientist chiefly known to Lester for his Health and Safety tantrums cunningly disguised as memos. For a man who had complained so violently about Dr Page’s habit of standing on computer chairs to access the further reaches of her filing system, he paid remarkably little attention to the security of his surroundings.

 

            Dr Butterworth paused to check something on his phone, and Lester, inspired by a sudden flash of strong dislike, thumped the horn. The momentary loss of self-control was definitely worth it, considering that the pay-off was seeing Dr Butterworth leap into the air like a startled fawn and scurry away.

 

Mercilessly, Lyle laughed. “That’s probably more exercise than he’s had all week.”

 

“Well, it would be unfortunate if he were to have a heart attack at this stage in the financial year. Hiring new staff is expensive and inquests are a nuisance.” Lester pulled smoothly out of the car park’s single exit, acknowledging the soldier on duty with an absent nod.

 

“It did him good,” Lyle assured Lester, and folded his arms. “Not like you, though.”

 

“What?” Lester said guiltily, waiting for a white van to drive past before heading out onto the discreet back street the ARC’s car park entrance was situated in.

 

Lyle gave him a look that said that that had been an excruciatingly obvious attempt to dodge the question. “Hitting the horn. Normally you’d just have said something rude and waited for Butterworth to move.”

 

“Oh. That,” Lester said, as if he hadn’t known all along what Lyle was referring to. “It’s possible that I’m... slightly nervous.”

 

“What about?” Lyle demanded, in an eminently practical tone of voice. “You’ve met my mother several times, it can’t get worse. And Liz doesn’t seem to have a problem with her.”

 

“She hasn’t _met_ her yet,” Lester said, exasperated even by this slight provocation. “I can’t help wanting to shield her, Jon, and it’s not as if I think Julia will hurt her or upset her, but –”

 

            “-You’re her dad, and spend a good fifty percent of your time worrying about her?” Lyle supplied smoothly. “Fair enough, but this is Liz. She isn’t a child. Firstly, she’s fifteen, and not a young fifteen at that, she isn’t fragile or immature. Secondly, yes, she’s had a rough year –”

 

            “A rough several years,” Lester pointed out, including his divorce and the consequent adjustment issues and her unfortunate encounter with a rogue deinonychus in the equation.

 

            “-Fine, a rough several years, and she isn’t exactly happy right now, but she’s working on it and she’s stable and she’s better than she has been for the last couple of months. Meeting someone new won’t kill her, even if it is my mother. Thirdly, if she had any idea we were having this conversation, she’d be furious and yell at us for treating her like she was feeble. We’d be eating burnt toast and baked beans for _months_.”

 

            Lester smiled, as he was meant to. “But...”

 

            “But...” Lyle echoed.

 

            Lester pressed his lips together. “It’s not as if – she’s probably going to end up meeting Julia several times, because – well, Julia’s your mother, she does have some involvement in your life, and so does Liz, and so do I, and every now and then we may all be involved at the same time.  Obviously, I worried much more about introducing her to you... although admittedly you took care of that between you, Liz has yet to tell me what she said to you but I’m sure it was suitably blistering... but still. It’s complicated.” He stopped at a red light, and waited for a swarm of tourists to make it over the zebra crossing.

 

            Lyle covered Lester’s hand on the gearstick with his own for a moment. “James. It’s just one meeting. You’re panicking.”

 

            “I am _not_ panicking!” Lester snapped.

 

            “James. Look at me.”

 

            Reluctantly, Lester turned his head and met Lyle’s eyes – calm and understanding, but still not taking any bullshit. He looked away, exasperated – probably mostly at himself. “I worry. That’s all.”

 

            “Yeah.” Lyle took his hand off Lester’s and settled back. “You have done since I’ve known you. Worried about her, that is. And it’s been worse since Jamie died. We’ve all been shit-scared for Liz at points over the past few months – you, me, Juliet, Emily, Kathy, Nicky, Theo, Ralph, Alison... all of us. Maybe it’s been worst for you, because she needs you most. But she’s getting better, and she needs a bit of space to do that in.”

 

            Lester set his jaw and took off from the red light at more speed that was strictly necessary. Lyle had a point – he often did, when it came to Liz, bizarre and maybe not entirely welcome as it was: he was thrilled that his partner got on so well with his daughter, but still, she was _his_ daughter, and he’d like to think he knew her better than Lyle did. Lester wasn’t sure if he was annoyed at Lyle or with himself, for being both irritated by Lyle being right and secretly frightened that Julia’s visit was going to knock Liz’s fragile equilibrium even when common sense argued otherwise. He had asked Lyle to warn Julia, had listened to the resulting telephone conversation, Lyle’s usual banter with his mother giving way to a serious tone that must have left an impression. Julia was far from stupid or unkind; she’d be careful. He had checked, several times, with Liz if the plans for Julia’s visit were still all right by her, until she’d finally snapped and banished him to his study because he was seriously disrupting her Maths homework.

 

            He still _worried_.

 

            “She swore blind she’d be on her best behaviour,” Lyle said quietly. “And later Henry rang me up and said he’d been ordered to provide a character testimonial, and that Julia was guaranteed to play well with others. Which took me by surprise, I’m telling you. It’s not very like her to take my warnings that seriously.”

 

            Lester tried to swallow around the lump that had mysteriously appeared in his throat. “I’d say you overdid it, but...”

 

            Lyle snorted. “Nice try, kitten.”

 

            “ _Kitten_?” Lester almost yelped, lump vanishing.

 

            Lyle sniggered, and shifted in his seat. “I’m expanding my endearment horizons.”

 

            “I decline absolutely to be addressed as _kitten_!”

 

            Lyle grinned. “Fine. Pumpkin.”

 

            Lester groaned, and resisted the temptation to bang his head on the steering wheel. “Thank God, we’re home.”

 

 

            It turned out that Julia had not beaten them back to the flat, and that Liz was as stable and calm as she had been when she left for school that morning. In fact, considering that she had sprinted out of the door shouting about Simon and Liam and emergency bolt-cutters, armed with only a thermos of coffee and coursework-in-progress, she was considerably calmer.

 

            “Hey,” Liz said casually as she opened the door to them, and immediately frowned. “You guys have been arguing again, haven’t you? It had better not have been about me.”

 

            “Certainly not,” Lester said, aware that this was a slightly weak riposte. “Brat. We had a slight difference of opinion. How can you tell, anyway?”

 

            “You look worried and Jon looks relaxed and wary at the same time, which tells me he thinks you’re about to go off again.” Liz’s eyes narrowed further. “Is this about Jon’s mum coming for tea? Since when can I not cook for four people without having a heart attack?”

 

            Lester tried to think of a way to explain that his chief concern had not been that Liz would find herself unequal to the catering task and failed. “I was perfectly happy to cook,” he tried.

 

            “Yeah, but I don’t want her to get _food poisoning_.”

 

            “I have never given anyone food poisoning!” Lester said indignantly, banishing the memory of an ill-advised green curry cooked during a holiday from university which had given him, Ralph and Theo a nasty case of the runs. Neither Ralph nor Theo had forgiven him for several years.

 

            Lyle snorted. “Listen to you two. Can we come in, Liz?”

 

            Liz got out of the way, allowing Lester to get past her and set his briefcase down. “Are _you_ going to tell me what happened?” she demanded, and Lester quailed internally. Lyle was likely to give her an entirely honest answer, and then they would both be dead meat.

 

            Lyle gave Liz an easy grin as he slouched over the threshold and carelessly toed off his boots. “Your dad was worrying, that’s all. I told him not to.”

 

            “Good,” Liz said, face lightening slightly. “I’m glad to see at least one of you has sense. As for you –” she launched herself at Lester, and Lester braced himself to receive a rib-crushing hug- “knock it off, I won’t break, it’s not like you didn’t give me plenty of warning and so many chances to back out I nearly brained you with a saucepan.”

 

            Lester decided to concentrate on the complimentary parts of that sentence and wrapped his arms tightly around his daughter. She was growing like a weed lately, hitting what was probably a final growth spurt, and had gone from just coming up to under his chin to being only half a head shorter than him in what felt like weeks. She was also growing up, he realised, with a small, sharp pang. Two years ago she would have stopped to explain to him exactly why she needed bolt-cutters and what Simon and Liam had done to themselves, probably complete with nauseating anatomical detail.

 

            She still gave hugs as if she meant to break your ribs. Lester, following an age-old pattern, lasted out thirty seconds of father-daughter hugging before making theatrical noises of discomfort and claiming that she was going to burst some kind of vital organ. Liz grinned up at him and squeezed harder, simply because she could, then let go, rebounded against Jon, and gave him a quick hug too before disappearing over to the oven and inspecting something inside it.

 

            There was absolutely nothing Lester could do about the sloppy smile on his face. Lyle grinned at him, and wandered over to the kitchen himself, grabbing a glass of water left on the side and draining it.

 

            “Oi, that was mine!” Liz complained, and Lyle passed her the glass, boosting himself onto the breakfast bar and raiding the fruitbowl for an apple.

 

            “So get yourself another one. What happened with the bolt-cutters this morning?”

 

            “Oh.” Liz, who had pinched Lyle’s apple and taken a large bit from it in revenge, tossed the apple back and chewed and swallowed before answering. Lester was pleased to see that he and Kathy had drummed some manners into her after all. “They’re putting on a Christmas production of the Mikado at school, you know, Gilbert and Sullivan, and there’s a bit where one of the characters is executed or nearly executed or whatever, so they need handcuffs. Simon’s doing the props and set and Amandeep’s directing it, and Liam’s Amandeep’s boyfriend, so when they had a progress meeting this morning before school they were all there, and Simon was showing off that he’d managed to get a real pair of handcuffs... no, I don’t know either... and Liam didn’t believe that they really worked, so Simon said of course they worked and handcuffed himself to Liam as a demonstration.” Liz paused in her recital to pour couscous into a saucepan, and Lester and Lyle shared an amused look.

 

            “Kids these days,” Lyle said, shaking his head solemnly, and a few of the soldiers’ latest exploits flashed through Lester’s head and brought on a severe case of raised eyebrows. He considered bringing some of them up, but then decided that Liz could explore iniquitous stories without encouragement from him and confined himself to asking Liz what had happened next.

 

            Liz started to giggle. “Amandeep lost the key.”

 

            Lyle let out a bark of laughter, and Lester dropped his head into his hands. “I wish I could say I hadn’t seen that coming.”

 

            “It gets better,” Liz assured them, through helpless laughter. “L-Liam panicked and tried to c-cut the handcuffs with a set of craft scissors, you know, the blunt ones, and then he tried to break them by banging them on a desk and shutting a door on them, except all he did was shut Simon’s fingers in the door, and... and then he thought Simon had done it on purpose and they were going to be... s-stuck with each other all day, and-” she controlled a fresh howl of mirth – “all Simon could say was it would be great publicity for the show!”

 

            There was a pause for general hysteria.  

 

            Liz wiped her eyes, and filled the kettle before putting it on to boil. “So the cast were in hysterics, Liam was screaming bloody murder, Simon was complaining about his poor ickle fingies – which did actually turn out to be broken, so maybe I shouldn’t say that – Amandeep was shouting at both of them to shut up and calm down, and finally, _finally_ Simon called me at eight o’clock in the morning to ask if I had a pair of bolt-cutters!”

 

            “What did you do?” Lester enquired, deeply amused.

 

            Liz grinned. “I borrowed a pair from the caretakers and cut the links, of course, but we couldn’t get the actual _cuffs_ off.”

           

            “So – what, are the boys still wearing them?” Lester demanded. He knew Simon’s parents well, and was very familiar with their (not wholly inaccurate) complaints that their son’s escapades would drive them to drink. He couldn’t imagine their reaction to his appearance in one cuff, broken links still dangling from it.

 

            Liz shook her head, grinning. “One of the teachers found out what had happened and Simon had to go to hospital, they took his cuff off there, and the fire brigade came and cut Liam’s off. They’re _never_ going to live it down.”

 

            “What are they going to do about the props?” Lyle said practically.

 

            Liz shrugged. “Dunno. I told them to use zip ties or something. Easier to get off.” The kettle boiled and she glanced at her watch. “When’s your mum coming?”

 

            Lyle glanced at his watch. “Five minutes?”

 

            “Oh, okay, fine.” Liz poured the contents of the kettle into the saucepan full of couscous and turned the hob on underneath it. “This’ll be ready in ten, and so...” She opened the oven briefly, squinting inside as a blast of hot air hit her. “...Will the chicken.”

 

            “What is it?” Lyle asked, expressing Lester’s most immediate concern.

 

            “Chicken,” Liz said uncommunicatively.

 

            The cordless phone went, and Lester, who was midway through removing his tie and jacket, draped both neatly over one of the stools at the breakfast bar and picked it up. “Hello?”

 

            “Is this James Lester?” said the receptionist. The usual receptionist, who had a running war with Liz and despised Lester, was off on sick leave and the current one was a ditzy and timid work experience girl, who didn’t know anyone in the flats yet.

 

            “Yes,” Lester said. “I take it Ms Julia Denton’s arrived?”

 

            “Um, yes.”

 

            “Do send her up,” Lester said cordially. “And be sure to tell her which floor we’re on. We mislaid our last guest and found him on the fifth floor explaining himself to the Dowager Lady Fanshawe.”

 

            “Um, which floor _are_ you on?” the receptionist asked, and Lester permitted himself a roll of the eyes.

 

            “The sixth,” he said rather tartly, and put the phone down. He turned back to Liz and Lyle. “Julia should be with us momentarily.”

 

            “Good,” Liz said, prodding the couscous with a wooden spoon, “’cause this cooks pretty quickly.”

 

            Lester nodded, and picked up his discarded jacket and tie. “I’ll just take these through,” he said, and went along to his bedroom, where he put the clothes away and spared himself a couple of moments for deep breaths.

 

            He definitely wasn’t anxious about this happy family meeting. No, not at all. Julia would know if he was. More importantly, so would Liz.

 

            He wasn’t worried, and maybe if he told himself that enough times, it would even start to be true.

 

            He went across the corridor to his bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face for good measure, then made to return to the main area of the flat, but was brought up sharp by the sound of Liz’s voice, talking to Lyle. It hadn’t escaped Lester’s notice that Liz increasingly confided in Lyle, especially since the final incident that had put her in counselling – an explosive argument with Juliet that had culminated in Liz locking herself in her room, whereupon Jon had waited for Juliet to leave, kicked down the door, and dragged an explanation out of Liz. He was glad that Liz felt able to speak to both of them; it confirmed that he had made the right decision when Jon had become part of his family as well as his lover, and it did a lot to counteract some of Kathy’s more vicious attacks. He was also anxious not to interrupt: it was far better that Liz have a chance to speak freely.

 

            “... She will like me, won’t she?” Liz was saying, sounding uncharacteristically shy.

 

Lester experienced a sudden and violent impulse to rush out there and assure his daughter that she was perfect, and Julia would think so too. He prevented himself, knowing that it wouldn’t help at all.

 

“She’ll think you’re fantastic,” Lyle answered, supremely confident and reassuring. “James’s biggest problem is going to be stopping you two plotting to take over the world.”

 

“I thought that was your job?” Liz queried, sounding a little happier, and Lester relaxed.

 

“Well, you’ll need minions, won’t you?” Lyle teased, and Liz giggled.

 

The doorbell rang.

 

 

Julia Denton was a woman of considerable presence, the kind who turned heads when she walked into a room and not necessarily because everyone was thrilled to see her; she was very well-off, very well-connected and indisposed to sit on her laurels as a highly successful former hack, and while Lester considered her a friend, he knew she was a serious potential problem. If she chose to investigate the anomaly project, it would be very difficult indeed to keep her out. Julia also – bold slash of red lipstick and violently patterned wrap dress aside - bore a strong resemblance to her son, from whom she was now demanding an embrace, on the grounds that she hadn’t seen him for six months. Jon dutifully gave the required hug and kiss on the cheek, and Lester watched Liz watch them, his daughter’s brown eyes sharp as she catalogued similarities and differences.

 

“James!” Julia said, hazel eyes glittering with amusement and just as much calculation as Liz’s as she released Lyle. “Where are you, you reprobate? I see you’ve been taking reasonable care of my scrawny wretch of a son.”

 

Lester sighed and rolled his eyes, an involuntary smile creeping onto his face, and found himself engulfed in a surprisingly warm and wholly unexpected hug of his own. “Hello, Julia.”

 

“I’m sorry about your son,” Julia muttered in his ear, gravelly voice unaccustomedly sober, and Lester blinked hard, stunned by more than just the powerful aroma of Julia’s cigarette smoke. He hadn’t seen Julia since before Jamie’s death – she’d been travelling constantly – but she’d sent a letter of condolences, brief, heartfelt and comforting at the same time as it made him cry. The memory of reading it sprung to mind, and he took a moment to clear his head and get his composure back, hoping his feelings weren’t written all over his face. Lyle’s sudden frown suggested that they were, and he didn’t want Liz to pick up on them.

 

Julia let go of him, and held out a hand to Liz. “You must be Liz.”

 

“Yeah,” Liz conceded, and Lester watched carefully as Liz cautiously shook hands with Julia. From the look on his daughter’s face, she’d discovered that Julia had a handshake that could crush scrap iron and had readjusted her own crushing handshake a few notches upwards in response, instantly more at ease. “And you’re Julia, right?”

 

“So I’m told,” Julia said dryly. “It’s good to finally meet you, Liz – Jon talks about you a lot.”

 

“Oh yeah?”

 

“Only the good stuff, I promise,” Lyle said, slinging an arm over his mother’s shoulders and grinning at Liz. “For example, no early-morning summonses to rescue friends who had handcuffed themselves together were mentioned.”

 

Liz rolled her eyes. “Oh, piss off, Jon, it was a perfectly innocent accident. Could’ve happened to anyone,” she said firmly, and then froze, realising that she’d sworn in front of an adult she didn’t know and wanted to like her. But Julia was laughing, and when Liz darted her eyes at Lester, he just smiled and shook his head.

 

“Julia,” he said, heading purposefully for the drinks cupboard, “what can I get you to drink?”

 

Liz slipped back to the kitchen, and crouched down to check on the chicken in the oven again. “Supper’s nearly ready,” she observed, straightened up and grabbed a pair of oven gloves.

 

“Whisky on the rocks, please – the train journey was hellish. First Great Western will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.” Julia accepted the drink he poured her, and bent a sceptical eye on Liz, who was now draining the couscous. “Liz, do they make you do the cooking around here?”

 

“No, I make me do the cooking round here,” Liz said absently, hopefully concentrating on not pouring scalding water over herself. “I don’t want food poisoning and Dad and Jon really _can’t_ cook.”

 

Julia laughed. Lester saw that she was keeping a careful eye on Liz, and suspected that the easy charm and bonhomie hid a certain amount of caution; it seemed that Jon’s warnings had been taken very seriously, even though Lester had thought Henry calling at her instigation sounded more like slight offense that Jon hadn’t just trusted her to get it right. “I’ve never tried your dad’s cooking,” Julia commented, “but I agree – wouldn’t give Jon’s to pigs.”

 

Lyle let out an outraged yell, and Liz laughed herself. “Truth hurts! At least I never try and make an omelette with rotten eggs, Jon!”

 

“That was once! _Once_! And I realised when I’d cracked them open!”

 

“If you’d checked the sell-by date, or, you know, floated them beforehand, it might have helped,” Liz said severely, flashing a grin at Lyle over her shoulder as she dished out generous helpings of couscous and the chicken dish, which Lester still couldn’t name but appeared to contain sultanas, almonds and (going by the yellow colour of the sauce) a generous helping of turmeric. “Jon, can you take the salad over?”

 

Jon grabbed the salad bowl on the breakfast bar then took it over to the dining table, which had already been laid. His mother followed him, updating him in a cheerful voice on life in Spain and her latest exploits, which had included a disastrous visit with business contacts to Madrid.

 

Lester joined Liz in the kitchen, taking down a wine glass from the cupboards for himself and a couple of plain glasses for Liz and Lyle.

 

“The beer’s behind the salad in the fridge,” Liz said absently, scrubbing at a small yellow patch of sauce on her shirt with cold water and a frown. “Can I have a Coke?”

 

“Of course.” Lester fished the requisite cans out of the fridge, and found himself the end of a bottle of white wine that had been languishing in there.

 

“I quite like her,” Liz said under her breath, still attending to the stain on her shirt.

 

Lester glanced at her, and smiled with relief. “Good.” He put the drinks down, and dragged her into the second hug in half an hour; she yelped, but made no other complaint, which suggested that she wasn’t as mortally embarrassed as she could have been.

 

“I love you very much,” Lester said quietly, feeling that possibly he didn’t tell his daughter this enough.

 

The daughter in question gave him a long-suffering and rather muffled sigh. “Yes, Dad.” Liz patted him on the back. “Now do you think you could let me go? So we can eat?”

 

Lester sniffed and let her go. “I might consider it. Wretched brat.”

 

“Feeble geriatric,” Liz retorted, eyes gleaming, mostly with amusement and a shared awareness that if Lester started this game, Liz would win.

 

Lester shook his head. “No respect for elders.”

 

Liz stuck her tongue out at him, picked up two of the plates and took them over to the dining table, weaving past Lyle on his way back to help and handing one to Julia, before setting the other down at the place beside Julia and sitting down.

 

“See?” Lyle murmured, taking his beer from Lester and picking up his own plate. “All fine.”

 

Lester found him a smile; it came much more easily than it would have done an hour previously. “I don’t know what I was worrying about.”

 

“Liar,” Lyle said with cheerful affection, and gave him a quick, firm kiss. “Come on and eat, before it gets cold and Liz kills us both.”

 

Lester smiled, and followed him over to the table, passing Liz her Coke as he sat down himself. Liz and Julia were already eating, and Lyle was raiding the salad; Lester grinned in the knowledge that if he didn’t, Liz would bug him endlessly about vitamin C and eating properly and cook’s prerogative in the kind of tone that made Lyle resolve to keep her away from Ditzy and reminded Lester strongly of Ralph trying to take care of people, and resorting to well-meant hectoring.

 

“Thanks, Dad,” Liz said as she accepted her Coke, and went straight back to explaining Simon and Liam’s handcuff-related mishap to Julia, who was already roaring with laughter.

 

Lester glanced round the table at what was looking increasingly like a family, and hid his smile in his wine glass.


End file.
